India must go back to 8% growth at any cost, says Prez

India must go back to 8% growth at any cost, says Prez

Observing that India's growth declined during the last two years and was lowest during last financial year, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the immediate challenge was to reverse the deceleration and nurse growth back to 8 per cent plus levels often clocked in the past.

"This Congress is being organised at a time when the world is beginning to emerge from the second-round impact of the global economic crisis. India too felt the repercussions of global slowdown", Mukherjee said.

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Image: A boy sells Indian national flags in Agartala.Photographs: Jayanta Dey/Reuters

India must go back to 8% growth at any cost, says Prez

He was speaking at the inauguration of the 28th annual Indian Engineering Congress organised by Institute of Engineers in Chennai.

"Our economic growth declined during the last two years.

“At five per cent in 2012-13, it was the lowest in the last ten years," he said.

"Our immediate challenge is to reverse the deceleration and nurse our growth path back to the eight per cent plus levels often clocked by us in the past," Mukherjee, a former Union Finance Minister, said.

He expressed confidence that India would be able to ‘secure a faster growth’ with some of the positive factors like ‘continuing rise in per capita incomes, expanding middle-class consumers and young energetic workforce’.

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Image: A vendor hangs a lantern for sale at a Diwali market in Mumbai.Photographs: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters